A graduate of the Edith Cowan university (WA academy of performing arts), Miranda Macpherson's research into eastern mysticism was, for many years, sponsored by the U.S. Govt.
THE POWER OF DEFENSELESSNESS
Miranda is talking Tibetan buddhism in the video above..
I'm convinced they do. And it doesn't sound ridiculous or far fetched at all.
The Sun is the only provider of life sustaining energy to earth; it is 1 million times bigger than the earth, so it is possible that sunspot activity affects our thinking and behaviour in radical ways.
This post consists of passages from various sources that are pointers to the above mentioned. That sunspot activity affects us immensely. Personally, socially.
But firstly, some questions...What is a sunspot? What is a sunspot cycle?
A sunspot is a dark spot on the Sun. These dark spots appear dark relative to the surroundings because these are regions where the temperatures are lower.
Sunspots are a result of peculiar magnetic activity on the Sun.
A sunspot cycle is the graph of the number of dark spots on the Sun, over time. Because the number of sunspots changes with time, as the Sun's magnetism alters itself.
The following graph shows sunspot activity from 1998 to 2015. Do the time spans in the following graph that have maximum sunspot activity (Solar Maxima), sound like phases of your life when turmoil was the highest? If yes, then read on!
An increase in solar activity is found to increase psychotic episodes in individuals who already suffer from unstable psychological states. In 1963, Dr. Robert Becker and his colleague, Dr. Freedman, demonstrated that solar changes also lead to a noticeable increase in psychotic activity.
Yet these reactions are not simply isolated to a few particularly sensitive or unlucky individuals. Evidence indicates that wars and international conflicts most often break out when sunspots are rapidly forming or rapidly decaying, as these are times when there are more intense geomagnetic storms.
In addition, this increase in solar activity also correlates to periods of more accidents and illness, as well as an increase of crimes and murders. The entire biosphere is affected by this electromagnetic pollution, and human behavior seems to react accordingly.
Russian professor A.Tchijevsky studied social movements in 72 countries, particularly wars, rebellions. With this data, he constructed the "Index of Mass Human Excitability" covering the years from 500B.C. to 1922 A.D., and divided the solar cycle into four parts.
Tchijevsky found that 80% of the most significant historical events occured at maximum sunspot activity.
Some examples - the American Civil War 1858-1861, World War I 1916-1918, and 1967-1969 the Vietnam War, the years in which sunspot activity was at its maximum.
In times of minimal sunspot activity, Tchijevsky concluded, people seemed not to mind being repressed or suppressed, and willing to let things remain as they are.
Tchijevsky found that 80% of the most significant events occurred during the 5 years of maximum sunspot activity.
(Tchijevsky's merely noting that the 1917 Russian Revolution occurred during the height of the sunspot cycle earned him almost 30 years in Soviet prisons because his theory challenged Marxist dialectics.)
Tchijevsky divided the eleven year sunspot cycle into four social periods:
Period 1: (approximately 3 years, minimum sunspot activity). Peace, lack of unity among the masses, election of conservatives, autocratic, minority rule.
Period 2: (approx. 2 years, increasing sunspot activity). Increasing mass excitability, new leaders rise, new ideas and challenges to the elite.
Period 3: (Approximately 3 years, maximum sunspot activity). Maximum excitability, election of liberals or radicals, mass demonstrations, riots, revolutions, wars and resolution of most pressing demands.
Period 4: (Approximately 3 years, decreasing sunspot activity). Decrease in excitability, masses become apathetic, seek peace.
Tchijevsky did not believe solar disturbances caused discontent as much as they acted as detonators that set off the smoldering discontent of the masses--discontent often channeled into war by their rulers.
Sorrow, frustration, fear, anger etc. are the raw materials of life. If you don't have these, you're not alive.
And if you have them, consider yourself rich........if the world has given you a lot of these, it means the world has given you potential riches.
BUT......excess of everything is bad of course. If you have a lot of raw material, you need to learn how to convert it into finished goods. Else you will have excessive raw material, and raw emotional material is hazardous, dangerous...
BE CREATIVE. GET YOUR INNER FACTORY GOING. CONVERT YOUR RAW MATERIAL INTO FINISHED GOODS. OF ANY KIND.
HOW TO GET YOUR INNER FACTORY GOING?
You don't have to do anything except take care of your health and keep your living space cheerful and comfortable. And be organised, do your work on time, keep your papers in order.
This essay has been presented at the conference Dying, Death and Grieving a cultural Perspective, RMIT University, Storey Hall, 349 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 22nd and 23rd March 22, 2002.
Buddhist View on Death and Rebirth
...Ven. Thich Nguyen Tang...
--- o0o ---
As a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, working as a Buddhist chaplain at several of Melbourne's hospitals and as well as Melbourne assessment prison, I have witnessed many personal tragedies faced by the living and of course the very process of dying and that of death and many of these poor people faced their death with fear, with misery and pain before departing this world. With the images of all these in my mind, on this occasion, I wish to share my view from the perspective of a Buddhist and we hope that people would feel far more relaxed in facing this inevitable end since it is really not the end of life, according to our belief.
Death and the impermanence of life
In the teaching of the Buddha, all of us will pass away eventually as a part in the natural process of birth, old-age and death and that we should always keep in mind the impermanence of life. The life that we all cherish and wish to hold on.
To Buddhism, however, death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of ones past actions.
This would lead to the person to be reborn in one of 6 realms which are; heaven, human beings, Asura, hungry ghost, animal and hell. Realms, according to the severity of ones karmic actions, Buddhists believe however, none of these places are permanent and one does not remain in any place indefinitely. So we can say that in Buddhism, life does not end, merely goes on in other forms that are the result of accumulated karma. Buddhism is a belief that emphasizes the impermanence of lives, including all those beyond the present life. With this in mind we should not fear death as it will lead to rebirth.
The fear of death stemmed from the fear of cease to be existent and losing ones identity and foothold in the world. We see our death coming long before its arrival, we notice impermanence in the changes we see around us and to us in the arrival of aging and the suffering due to losing our youth. Once we were strong and beautiful and as we age, as we approach our final moments of life we realize how fleeting such a comfortable place actually was.
Grieving
It is natural to grieve the loss of family members and others we knew, as we adjust to living without their presence and missing them as part of our lives. The death of a loved one, or even someone we were not close to, is terribly painful event, as time goes on and the people we know pass away along the journey of life, we are reminded of our own inevitable ends in waiting and everything is a blip of transience and impermanent.
At a certain moment, the world seems suddenly so empty and the sense of desperation appears to be eternity. The greater the element of grief and personal loss one tends to feel sorry for oneself.
Some of us may have heard the story of the women who came to the Buddha in great anguish, carrying her dead child pleading him to bring the child back to life. The Buddha said Bring to me a mustard seed from any household where no-one had ever died and I will fulfill your wish. The woman's attempt to search for such seed from houses were in vain and of course she could not find any household in which no-one had ever died and suddenly she realized the universality of death.
Karma
According to Buddhism, our lives and all that occurs in our lives is a result of Karma. Every action creates a new karma, this karma or action is created with our body, our speech or our mind and this action leaves a subtle imprint on our mind which has the potential to ripen as future happiness or future suffering, depending on whether the action was positive or negative.
If we bring happiness to people, we will be happy. If we create suffering, we will experience suffering either in this life or in a future one.
This is called the Law of Karma, or the Law of Cause and Effect. Karmic law will lead the spirit of the dead to be reborn, in realms which are suitable appropriate to their karmic accumulations.
According to His Holiness, the 14 th Dali Lama of Tibet, that to cultivate the good karma, our good actions are an excellent way prepare for our death. Not performing evil deeds, keeping our heart and mind pure, doing no harm, no killing, sexual misconduct or lying, not using drugs or alcohol has very positive merit which enable us to die as we have lived.
The way we pass reflects the way we lived our lives, a good death putting a good stamp on a good life. As Leonardo Da Vinci once wrote in his notebook; Just as a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings a happy death. If we have lived a life of emotional turmoil, of conflict selfish desire unconcerned for others, our dying will be full of regrets, troubles and pain. It is far better to care for the lives for all around us rather than spending a fortune in prolonging life or seeking ways to extend it for those who can afford it, at the expense of relieving suffering in more practical ways. Improving the moral and spiritual quality of life improves its quality for us all rather than the selfish individualism that benefits the elite few who draw most resources.
Preparing for death:
Buddhist clergy often remind their followers about closeness of death, emphasize the importance in getting to know death and take time to prepare for their own demise.
How do we prepare for death?. It is really simple, just behave in a manner which you believe is responsible, good and positive for yourself and towards others. This leads to calmness, happiness and an outlook which contributes to a calm and controlled mind at the time of death.
Through this positive and compassionate outlook of life, always being aware of the impermanence of life and having a loving attitude towards all living things in this transient existence we will be free of fear in opposite to grasping selfishly to life due to not having experienced happiness in life.
Having lead a responsible and compassionate life and have no regrets when death approaches enables us to surrender without a struggle to the inevitable and in a state of grace which need not be as uncomfortable as we are led to believe.
Rebirth:
The concept of rebirth or reincarnation has become more popular in the west in recent years due to the influence of Tibetan Buddhism, especially, the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (by Sogyal Rinpoche, 1992) became a best seller in the USA and has been widely read throughout the developed countries by new generations who are concerned with alternative thinking and eastern cultural perspectives. Naturally people concern with life beyond death was stimulated by the ideas contained in such philosophies and beliefs.
Nirvana:
The supreme aim of Buddhism is to obtain nirvana or enlightenment. This translated means a state of liberation or illumination from the limitations of existence. It is the liberation from the cycle of rebirth through countless lives up and down the 6 states of existence. It is obtained through the extinction of desire.
Nirvana is a state that is obtainable in this life through the right aspiration, purity of life, and the elimination of egotism. This cessation of existence as we know it, the attainment of being, as distinct from becoming. [1] The Buddha speaks of it as unborn, un-originated, uncreated, unformed, contrasting it with the born, originated, created, and formed phenomenal world. Those who have obtained the state of Nirvana are called Buddhas. Gautama Siddhartha had obtained this state and had become a Buddha at 35. However it is now believed that it was only after he had passed away that he reached such a place of perfect tranquility, because some residue of human defilement would continue to exist as long as his physical body existed.
According to Buddhism if a human does not obtain nirvana or enlightenment, as it is known, the person cannot escape the cycle of death and rebirth and are inevitably be reborn into the 6 possible states beyond this our present life, these being in order from the highest to lowest;
Heaven. In Buddhism there are 37 different levels of heaven where beings experience peace and long lasting happiness without suffering in the heavenly environment.
Human life. In Buddhism we can be reborn into human life over and over, either wealthy or poor, beautiful or not so, and every state between and both as it it is served up to us. Anything can happen, as is found in human life and society all around us as we are familiar with in the day to day human world in is myriad of possibilities. What we get is a result of our Karma of what we have dragged with us from previous existences and how it manifests in our temporary present lives.
Asura. A spiritual state of Demi-Gods but not the happy state experienced by the gods in the heavens above this state. The Demi-Gods are consumed with jealousy, because unlike humans, they can clearly see the superior situation of the gods in the heavens above them. They constantly compete and struggle with the gods due to their dissatisfaction with their desires from the others.
Hungry Ghost. This spiritual realm of those who committed excessive amounts of evil deeds and who are obsessed with finding food and drink which they cannot experience and thus remain unsatisfied and tortured by the experience. They exhaust themselves in the constant fruitless searching.
Animals. This realm is visible to humans and it is where spirits of humans are reborn if they have killed animals or have committed a lot of other evil acts. Animals do not have the freedom that humans would experience due to being a subject constantly hunted by humans, farmed and used in farming, also as beasts for entertainment.
Hell. This realm is not visible to humans. It is a place where beings born there experience a constant state of searing pain and the various types of hell realms reads like a variety of horrific torture chambers. Those with a great deal of negative Karma can remain in such places for eons of time.
To conclude, as already mentioned, none of us can avoid death and if we are not free from the vicious cycle of death and rebirth, we are doomed to the endless cycles of life and death and its paradoxical nature of suffering, of happiness and sadness, youth and ageing, healthiness and sickness, pain and death, all because we are so attached to the existence in the first place.
The Buddha urged us to prepare for death, to prepare for that journey by cleansing the mind and not being so attached to things, to be able to let go and release ourselves for needing to be, from needing to have. Through this we will not suffer so much as we pass through the final stage of the present life, we can let go, be grateful for what we had but not clutch to it, not try to ensure permanency and cause ourselves to suffer more than we need to. This way we can end the cycle and leave forever, obtaining nirvana and release from the cycle of death and rebirth.
"We have lost perspective of who we are, what we are...our psychological realities have become bigger than the cosmic reality....this is an immense existential problem...it's time we step out of the cinema playing in our minds.. if your petty psychological creation becomes larger than the cosmic creation..it is a problem.."
"In this vast cosmos, the solar system is just a speck...tomorrow morning if the solar system disappears, vanishes, evaporates, nobody will even notice it, maybe it is not even in the account books of creation...in this speck of the solar system planet earth is a super speck..."
12:00 1) How do my thoughts feel?
2) HOw do my desires feel?
3) Where do these things originate?
4)
"Each of us is programmed to think that our thoughts are true. We can easily see if someone else's thoughts aren't true but we think all our thoughts are true and correct." - Gina Lake, 14:00, "A Talk by Gina Lake About Acceptance".
This is such a revolutionary, radical realisation, that it can change one's life. But you have to keep seeing it, realising it continuously, with each thought that pops up. A new umbrella of consciousness, a new envelope of consciousness, a new dimension has to come in, that holds this realisation in its awareness continuously, in the NOW.
Such a dimension, such an umbrella can certainly form, once the seed is sown. And now that you know all this, consider the seed sown. Come back to these words as often as you can and when you do that, it would be like watering and nourishing the seed we have sown in you.
STEP 10: Begin to think positively about whatever it is that you are worrying about. I know you're listening to this and probably thinking how incredibly obnoxious this idea is, like positive focus is going to do anything about me and my issue of worry. I know exactly where you're coming from. But hang with me for a minute. I am not asking you to lie to yourself. I am asking you to look for ways to feel better about the thing you are worrying about.
When you are suffering from this kind of a condition where you are constantly expecting the worst case scenario, you have a lot of healing to do with your emotional body because that is the one that continues to be a match to all of these negative experiences coming into your reality; that's where that expectation is contained, of what you are meant to experience in this life, whether it be positive or whether it be negative.
You have to realise that the reality of life is that we don't know what the future contains; this is painful because it means that our future could contain uncomfortable things we don't want to experience; but we can use the same uncertainty to our advantage - by flipping it around. We can't know that bad things won't happen, but we also can't know that GOOD things wont' happen.
So you can't know, 100%, without the shadow of a doubt, that that bad thing you are expecting to happen, will actually happen.
Reflect back on the times when you thought the worst case scenario was going to happen but it didn't. I want you to make a list of all of the times you were wrong about the worst case scenario. The reason is that our brain sometimes needs to see the proof that its complete conviction and addiction to the idea that everything is going to go bad for it isn't accurate.
Just because you have experienced tragedies in the past, does not mean they will happen in the future.
Worriers tend to focus on the problem incessessantly and resist the fact that a harmless or mildly negative outcome is possible.
"That's all you need do, is get through one more day. And the next. Don't look any further than that. If you can just give yourself one day. 24 hours. No, you're not going to feel magically better. No, it's not going to be much easier tomorrow. But one day is sometimes all it takes to get to the next day. And the next. Before you know it, 10 days have passed."
"The ego is not actually a thing. It's nothing real. It is just a sense of separateness that manifests as fear and operates to protect the self in a primitive, animalistic way. Fear is the antithesis of love. So the ego is out for itself (I guess you could say it loves itself, but it isn't actually an "it") and the ego doesn't see its connection to the whole or to Oneness. It sees itself as odds with others, so it has difficulty loving."
"“Much of the commentary that goes through people’s minds is a chain of thoughts designed to get them to take action in directions that will yield greater power, control, safety, security, pleasure, recognition, and comfort, all things the ego esteems. There is nothing wrong with these things, but there is much more to life. The false self doesn’t know how to create a happy, loving life. The life it creates is lopsided and detached from what brings true meaning to life.” –From The Jesus Trilogy.
A belief is a thought, and a thought can only remain in existence if you give it attention. If you give a thought attention, you breathe life into it. Beliefs are thoughts that you have given so much attention to that you now firmly believe them. Without your attention, a thought cannot live for very long, and without your repeated attention, a thought cannot become a belief. You are very powerful! You animate and maintain the false self with your attention. You breathe life into the false self by giving your thoughts repeated attention. Without this attention, thoughts wither and beliefs fade away.” –From The Jesus Trilogy
I have always believed that the "transcendental" should not be the playground only of "spiritual masters".
INTRODUCTION:
In the teaching of the Buddha, all of us will pass away eventually as a part in the natural process of birth, old-age and death and that we should always keep in mind the impermanence of life. The life that we all cherish and wish to hold on. 
The supreme aim of Buddhism is to obtain nirvana or enlightenment. This translated means a state of liberation or illumination from the limitations of existence. It is the liberation from the cycle of rebirth through countless lives up and down the 6 states of existence. It is obtained through the extinction of desire.
